Those that control the fantasy, control the future.

Monika Bielskyte – Protopia vs TESCREAL Visions of Tech Rapture | The Conference 2023

Who wants to live in a world like in Blade Runner?

Established and popular visions of the future are often dominated by stereotypical religious, capitalist, or totalitarian perspectives. These predominantly dystopian or extreme scenarios tend to capture our attention more effectively than balanced, moderate ones. This is largely due to our instinctual focus on potential dangers, driven by fear.

As Monika Bielskyte asks in her talk, “Who among us truly wants to live in a world like the one depicted in Blade Runner?” We undoubtedly answer with a resounding „no.“ But what alternative visions are we nurturing? Narratives like Solarpunk and Afrofuturism offer glimpses of a more optimistic and inclusive future, but they often provide only a vague pool of realistically applicable ideas and seem distant from the status quo we experience today. We must recognize that our vision of the future requires constant updating—just as we must acknowledge that technologies like flying cars or artificial general intelligence come with demands and negative effects beyond our fictional expectations.

UNTOPIA is a series of generative images that explore diverse concepts of future technology, the effects of today’s crises, and societal needs. These images mix and reimagine these elements, resulting in seemingly realistic depictions of a not-so-distant future.

The Creators and the Ones created

Die Erschaffer sind Teil des Zyklus der Evolution.

The Harvesters and Believers

Die Sammler und die Gläubigen bewahren die materiellen und imateriellen Schätze dieser Welt.

The Crawlers

Die Krabbler sind Wanderer zwischen den Welten.

The Formwandler

Die Formwandler erweitern die Grenzen menschlicher Physis.

The Hive

Der Körper findet seine Ruhe und schafft neues Leben.

The Waterworkers

The Growers

prompts

analog low key asymmetrical close-up photography like a christian Caravaggio painting, three adult aged tattooed female holding each other, bend over crouching to the ground, looking each other, supporting and facing each other, whispering and singing together, holding each others arms, hugging, wearing oversized loose colorful clothing used down jackets shirts hooded workers pants with traditional weaving patterns and cyberpunk embroidery, dirty used sneakes and flip flops, and all persons standing in midst of a huge chaotic pile of up to the ceiling full of colorful religious futuristic items and humanoid cyborg silicone body limbs, arms legs facial prosthetics, like a religious altar with tiny led lights, printed and embroidered labels on many items with religious symbols and holy patterns, smoking incense sticks in background, diffuse warm lighting from top down very like a painting, floor with old rugs, narrow chaotic room full of traditional tapestries, lens distortion, bad lighting

amateur photography like renaissance painting of two aged young female homeless person in oversized white inflated dirty used down jackets with and traditional black lace decorations doing baptism ceremony of smooth surreal chubby androgyn abstract humanoid body made from smooth white silicone with traditional porcelain patterns, humanoid floating deep in white cream, white reflective cream, dark room with round walls of black concrete, white porcelain decorations on the ceiling , natural lighting, white smoke, depth of field, lens distortion, ugly, white glossy long stabs from ceiling to the ground in very blurry out of focus foreground

amateur photography like renaissance painting of person crawling on all fours, with torso and limbs covered with with like huge glossy white cellar rattle with huge dirty damaged insect inspired white silicone plates covering torso , black wet rocks and white desert sand, natural lighting, white smoke, depth of field, lens distortion, ugly, black tall rocks in very blurry out of focus foreground, sand storm

amateur photography like renaissance painting of , dirty wet distressed black down suit looking like a sphere strapped to the wall up high and wrapped tightly and chaotic in a black glossy dirty thick spider like cocoon made up of thousands of translucent dirty distressed thin spider strings attached high up to the walls upper corner like a spider cocoon with many old black translucent spider strings bio inspired ,black glossy plants creepers with black leafes growing all over black damaged cracked wall in background and floor, narrow round dark cave, overgrown floor with black grass and creepers and black water, dense black smoke clouds from burning incense sticks, ritual, long black glossy strings in out of focus forefround

analog photography like a painting of a homeless aged female person with realistic skin crouching down to the ground in two third side portrait pose like a renaissance christian traditional biblic painting in casual colorful oversized dirty down jacket and oversized used clothing colorfull patterned, wearing traditional medival white thin linen english gable hood , in the midst of very colorful cosy narrow pile of trashbags colorful cables, old toys and devices traditional weaved rugs and tapestries and multiple welded shopping carts and wooden planks and led lights displays, suspended ceiling made of fabric panels printed with colorful patterns and symbols and slogan „JUST JESUS „, diffuse lighting and colors like renaissance painting, out of focus, blurry, vignette, strong lens distortion, light leaks color distortion, black film border, bad lighting, bad quality, christian arabic islamic asian religious symbols and icons and patterns hidden in the image, wide angle lens, old electronic car parts on the wall, colorful plague mask made of linen fabric with embroidered religious symbols

realistic cinematic photo of interweaved old huge fat tree branches like wet huge snakes wet overgrown with moss, person in dirty white inflated oversized hooded down suit hugging crawling sensitive emotional climbing trees, installing black small dirty spherical devices, black niqab covering face, at night with frontal light, huge tree stems and hundreds of thin very long glossy white plant creepers strings cables hanging from sky in out of focus foreground, white fog white smoke

photography of lots of white glossy thick huge fat snakes bodies become white wet trees on black dirt floor, at night , person in black dirty used oversized inflated down suit digging kneeling in dirt ground and caring about snakes in out of focus blurry background, depth of field, dense forest of white trees and black smoke in background, snake heads invisibled

Monika Bielskyte – Protopia vs TESCREAL Visions of Tech Rapture | The Conference 2023